POLITICS-CENTRAL AMERICA: Falling Out and
Falling Apart?
By Daniel
Zueras
SAN JOSÉ (IPS) - The late June coup
d'état in Honduras was a body blow to
political integration in Central America.
The institutions of the regional integration
process have been incapable of reacting to
the event, leaving the future of the process
increasingly uncertain and trade agreements,
themselves in poor shape, as the only viable
way forward, experts say.
The Central American Parliament (PARLACEN),
the Central American Court of Justice (CCJ)
and the Central American Integration System
(SICA) have remained deafeningly silent
since Jun. 28, when the armed forces bustled
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of his
house and put him on a plane to Costa Rica,
still in his pyjamas.
Then came the decision of Panama's new
rightwing government to withdraw the country
from PARLACEN, further weakening the
regional institution.
Renzo Rosal, assistant head of the Central
American Institute for Political Studies (INCEP),
said the Panamanian government's decision
showed how tentatively the issue of Central
American integration is pencilled in on the
agenda of the region's governments.
PARLACEN, a permanent regional forum for the
political representation of SICA, consists
of the former presidents and vice-presidents
and 20 directly elected representatives from
each member state.
The member countries are at present El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and
Panama, and the Dominican Republic (although
it is not strictly within the region), which
has 22 appointed representatives. Mexico,
Puerto Rico, Taiwan and Venezuela have
observer status.
Costa Rica never joined PARLACEN, which it
regards as costly and ineffective. However,
it is a member of SICA and the rest of the
Central American regional institutions.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who
took office Jul. 1, said PARLACEN was "a den
of immunities," referring to ex presidents
of Central American countries taking refuge
in parliamentary immunity from prosecution
when they are accused of corruption.
However, this immunity was lifted in 2004,
and PARLACEN representatives are now subject
to the laws of their own countries.
In any case, it will not be easy for Panama
to extricate itself from the regional forum,
because the treaty that established PARLACEN
does not include a mechanism for resigning
from it, Rodil said.
Under international law, in the absence of a
resignation procedure, a member of a body
may withdraw from it if all the other
members agree. But the other PARLACEN
members have so far rejected Panama's
decision, calling instead on the Martinelli
administration to reconsider, he said.
PARLACEN and the CCJ absorb more than 60
percent of the resources available for
integration. The PARLACEN budget is over 10
million dollars a year.
SICA, created in 1991, is the latest of a
long series of integration efforts in the
region. Its predecessor, the Central
American Common Market (MERCOMUN), was
formed in the 1960s but failed due to
economic crisis and the civil wars that tore
the region in the 1970s and 1980s.
Two of the most prestigious regional bodies,
however, were both founded in 1960: the
Central American Bank for Economic
Integration (BCIE) and the Central American
Economic Integration System (SIECA),
functionally now largely displaced by SICA.
The proliferation of acronyms is a bit
overwhelming. "In the 1960s, there was even
a Central American Defence Council (CONDECA),
which few people knew about," Rodolfo Cerdas,
of the Costa Rican Centre for Political
Administration Research and Training (CIAPA),
told IPS.
Cerdas, author of the book "Las
instituciones de integración en
Centroamérica" (Integration Institutions in
Central America), said that "years ago, I
counted a total of 59 institutions, and
another 14 that were defunct. No doubt there
are more now."
All this machinery, in his view, is
completely ineffective. "Integration should
be built from the bottom up, not the other
way around, creating institutions without
any content." According to Cerdas,
"political integration is dead," but it is
possible to envisage an emerging economic
union.
Cerdas said that, in his opinion, the free
trade agreement signed in 2004 by the United
States, five Central American countries and
the Dominican Republic – CAFTA - has made
"the most progress" towards the oft-mooted
Central American union.
In an interview with IPS, Arnoldo Rubio,
coordinator of the master's degree course in
European Studies and Regional Integration at
the Costa Rican Distance Learning State
University (UNED), expressed a similar view.
"Integration is failing, especially in the
political aspects. The process has not
reached maturity," he said.
"The commercial side has received greater
stimulation," Rubio added, emphasising the
importance of the CAFTA treaty, as well as
the negotiations towards an Economic
Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Central
America and the European Union.
According to Cerdas, there has been a
conceptual problem with regional integration
from the outset. The old MERCOMUN idea of a
protected and privileged trade area does not
make any sense now in the light of
globalisation, "so the concept of open
integration was adopted. But that needed to
be translated into concrete terms: branches,
activities, technology and timelines, and
this was not done."
The CIAPA researcher said "Central America's
big problem is that it has had many
opportunities for integration since
independence in 1821, but has succeeded in
none of them."
"Attempts have always been made to impose it
from above, when the logical approach is to
start by developing areas where economic,
financial, commercial, cultural and
educational affinities between the countries
can be found.
"Conceptually, even a clear definition of
'Central America' is lacking, because it's
one region geographically, another
historically, and anthropologically a
different region again," Cerdas said.
"Border conflicts and senseless jealousies"
also play their part, said Rubio.
The legacy of Spanish colonialism lumped
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
and Nicaragua together in the former Federal
Republic of Central America (1823-1840). But
the modern region includes the former
British colony of Belize, and Panama since
its 1903 separation from Colombia.
Unionist rhetoric has been rampant ever
since independence from Spain in the early
19th century, but has remained hot air. The
current integration model appears to be "a
mistake," according to Cerdas, because it is
made in the image and likeness of the EU,
without allowing for the region's specific
problems and diversity.
In order to change the system, there will
have to be a crisis, "and it would be very
easy to provoke one. The moment the EU tells
PARLACEN that there is no more money, it
will all be over, because no government will
pay for its upkeep," Cerdas said. |
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